Flashing Backward
by skwirelygurli
Summary: Austin looks back at old memories as he helps Ally prepare the nursery. Auslly.


**Flashing Backward, an Austin and Ally oneshot**

**I do not own Austin and Ally. This is for Violet Fier, Mystik225, Random Cat and Kim Crawford's prompts. Please enjoy and leave a review!**

There's something about her waddling around with his, their, child inside of her that makes him want to jump her bones. Hop her bones? Lightly mount them, because there's a child grow inside of her, and he doesn't want to do anything to harm it. He. She. The baby. He can't place an adjective to the body, not that his wife will let him.

An envelope drops to the ground, and she stoops down to pick it up.

He should help her back up. He does, and she gets tugged towards his body, specifically the lips.

"Have I told you that you look beautiful today?" He makes her wait to answer.

Once her mouth is free, "Twice, actually."

He chuckles. Today they're going to decorate the nursery. The paint from the weekend has dried into a lovely shade of blue, which despite what he believed was not a hint that he's having a son. It was merely an attempt to bring some calm into the room. There's ocean waves sweeping the walls, just like the view outside.

Pawing through the box of old sheet music, they look for some to frame. If genetics comes into play, this kid is going to be a musical prodigy.

And attractive, because, well, look at her.

She's gorgeous.

A lot of it is songs they've written together. Yet curiosity pulls him further into the box, and he finds a sheet that he's forgotten about. Taking it in his hands, he remembers.

_(flashing backward)_

Playing those drums hadn't been the first time he'd stepped foot in Sonic Boom. Five months prior he had gone in for sheet music. He was trying to get inspired so that he could write something of his own, become famous.

The only thing he ended up writing was the greatest love story ever told. The story he'll tell his grandchildren in twenty or so years, and then write down to place on a shelf of non-fictions, because he couldn't make this up if he tried.

Seriously, he's not the writer here. Ally is.

She had approached him stealthily, though she'll argue that the sound of her boots preceded her presence. Back then she was still shy, and the most he had ever heard from her was the few words she spoke in english class. Big words that made him tune her out.

"Can I help you find anything?" she had asked in that rehearsed kind of way.

Jumping, he turned around. For starters, how about his heartbeat?

Or plans for Friday night?

"Hi. I'm Austin."

That did not answer her question.

"Okay. I'll be over there if you need anything Austin." She repeated his name. It sounded better in her voice.

He neglected to catch her name, even as he flirted relentlessly with her as she cashed him out. Told her things that made her chew her hair, blush like a girl who had applied too much of mommie's makeup.

That's when he knew he was hooked on a girl he'd never see again. So he thought. He didn't think that she'd make a permanent spot in his heart, nestled between happiness and anxiety. Both of which she'd give him plenty.

One can't help nerves when they want someone as badly as he did. Does.

_(flashing forward)_

He smooths the wrinkles of the page, smiles at it for a beat too long.

"What did you find?" His wife takes the page from him.

"It's from the first day we met." Helping her up off the floor, they go over to the piano bench. Sitting close isn't so much a choice anymore as it is a necessity. This time they have to make room for three. Over her protruding belly, her fingers dance along the keys.

He likes their music better.

The charms of her bracelet hit the piano as he puts his hands on hers to stop. He'll keep the memory, but this one is going back in the box.

_(flash backward)_

Upon graduation, he had gotten her new charms for her bracelet. Her father had started it off with the microphone, for overcoming her stage fright. He added four more.

First there was the atom. Junior year they had been partners in chemistry. She was the reason he passed that year. Also, there was that one nerd joke.

'You guys have chemistry together.'

'No, that was last year. We've moved onto physics.'

'Ooh, kinky.'

He hadn't understood what the cheerleader had meant, just that she was rejecting him. It took him half the walk home to get it.

Physics, not physical. They weren't getting physical.

That would come after his grand confession.

The second charm was an ampersand. It was a little warped and resembled a G clef if you squinted, turned your head to the right. The jeweler had given it to him at a discount. It was perfect to him. They go together, and music is what links them.

Plus there's always that slight imperfection that keeps things fresh.

The 'A' charm was his third choice. For Ally, for Austin, if she were to respond positively to his suggestion of graduating from friendship along with high school. 'A' for the grades she got, and now for the baby they're going to have. Abigail or Adam, depending on the gender. It isn't a purposeful carrying on of the first initial. Adam would be after Adam Levine, one of her favorite musicians. Abigail would be after his grandmother, who died two months ago, never to see her grandchild. She would hold her wrinkled hands to Ally's belly, wait to feel the kick, a heartbeat.

That was something they had in common.

His final charm, from that day, had been a bunny. He had been looking for one on a bicycle, referencing back to when she took him cloud watching. It had been the first attempt at spending quality time together. The cloud charm had looked like a bush. She wasn't into topiary.

From time to time she teases him that he got the bunny because he tends to be one himself. He should have gotten her the bicycle charm. It could have been the fifth charm, but he was reserving that spot for a very special symbol.

The Eiffel Tower.

i.e. the place where he proposed and she said yes and cried because she was so darned happy.

That's his favorite charm.

_(flashing forward)_

The bunny inside of him forces his hand to fall to her side, tugging her closer. Her belly stops any further movement.

She laughs as he asks her again, how many more months.

"We should get back to working on the baby's room." She collects a handful of their old songs, takes them back to the nursery.

He drives all the nails into the wall, watches as she hangs all the songs, takes them down and rearranges them.

This could take a while.

Moving the stuffed alligator from the rocker, he takes a seat.

_(flashing backward)_

During his Full Moon tour, Austin was missing Ally way too much. They had stopped by a mall for a meet and greet, and there had been a shop for making your own stuffed animal. Bears, pigs, cats.

He wanted to make an alligator.

"What are you going to name him?" The girl stuffing him had asked.

It was a good thing that Dez and Trish hadn't been around to hear his answer. He had kept him hidden in his guitar case for weeks until they got back home. He'd sit on the bed next to Dougie unless someone was coming over.

He tended to forget things when he was sick. Like to comb his hair, or how it felt to be healthy, or to hide a little stuffed alligator in the closet because his girlfriend was coming to bring him soup.

"Aww, he's so cute. What's his name?"

He also forgot how to lie.

"Ally-gator."

_(flashing forward)_

She finishes hanging the photos, and he tells her to come sit. She refuses, saying he can't hold her weight.

He suggests that they try laying in bed instead then.

Clothing optional.

Poor boy, turned on by his pregnant wife.

Something she won't dare to confess?

She wants it as badly as he does.

Some people are just better at hiding it.

Just not today

Today she slides under the covers, sidles up next to him and feels his arms wrap around her stomach.

"I think I felt a kick."

No jumping, hopping, or lightly mounting of the bones. Just reveling in her existence.


End file.
